Iraq War was indeed a ‘disaster’

Ken Davenport has it so wrong (“Left wrong to brand war in Iraq a ‘disaster,’ Op-ed, Sept 13).

Many issues were involved in the Iraq disaster: Should we have gone to war? Was Saddam the worst dictator in the world? Should we have gone to war in Iraq before Afghanistan was put to bed? Should we have pushed democracy on a land that has not experienced true democracy? Should we have fired the existing Iraq military and not policed their weapons? Should we have understood the religious animosity in their culture? Should we have instilled the culture of torture?

I submit if Colin Powell was vice president, we would not have screwed up so badly. Our military is not in question here — what is in question is the American conservative mentality and the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld troika. Yes, it was a disaster.

George Dill

Escondido

‘Left’ wasn’t wrong about Iraq

Did the left lie about Iraq having WMDs (“Left wrong to brand war in Iraq a ‘disaster,’” Op-ed, Sept. 13.)?

Did the left lie about Saddam Hussein being involved in 9/11?

Did the left sucker punch Colin Powell into presenting edited evidence?

Is the left responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 brave Americans or tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis? Is the left responsible for an unnecessary war that wasted more than 2 trillion borrowed dollars? Is the left responsible for Iraq without Saddam becoming Iran’s best ally? Is the left responsible for the ongoing brutal sectarian violence in Iraq, or the thousands of American soldiers suffering from war wounds?

Maybe if Ken Davenport faces a full-length mirror without partisan blinders, he’ll be able to tell left from right.

Alan Segal

San Diego

Iraqi civilian suffering

In his essay “Left wrong to brand war in Iraq a “distaster” (Op-ed, Sept. 13), Mr. Ken Davenport speaks appropriately of the great sacrifices made by U.S. troops in the Iraq War, and because of their sacrifices in pursuit of spreading freedom and liberty, the war cannot be considered a disaster.

He speaks of “the only metric that truly matters: removing from power a brutal dictator and persistent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors.” It is disconcerting that not once in his essay does he speak of the costs suffered by the Iraqi people as a result of the war.

The Pentagon estimates a death toll in excess of 100,000 Iraqis, IraqBodyCount.org documents up to 125,000 civilian deaths from violence, and the respected medical journal The Lancet, in its controversial consideration of “excess deaths” due not just to hostilities but the collapse of civil society, infrastructure and medical care, comes up with 655,000 civilian deaths through mid 2006. Extrapolating these numbers to the U.S. population, which is 10 times that of Iraq, gives a range from 1 million to 6.6 million. If over a million Americans were to die on American soil due to events set in motion by an invading foreign power, would we consider the war to be anything other than a disaster?